


Breath in the Bitter Cold

by knightshade



Series: 5 Ways Sam and Jack Never Broke the Regs [2]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Cliche, Episode: s01e19 Solitudes, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-05 00:25:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3098135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightshade/pseuds/knightshade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam wakes up to find that Colonel O’Neill is no longer shivering.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breath in the Bitter Cold

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place as a missing scene during Solitudes. It was written for the Live Journal 10_cliche_fics, Smut Table, Sexual Healing but given the extent of Jack’s injuries I didn’t feel like I could take it too far.  
> 
> Originally posted to Live Journal.
> 
> Each of these stories is completely self-contained, no need to read them in any order.

**Five Ways Sam and Jack Never Broke the Regs**

**Part 2 – Breath in the Bitter Cold**

Sam was so cold she hurt. It was bitter and freezing and miserable. And it had been getting worse ever since the light in the crevasse had started to fade. She didn’t know how long night lasted on this planet they were stuck on, but it was already too long. The cold was seeping into every inch of her, and it was impossible to ignore. Her shivering was continuous and formed the backdrop for the uncontrollable rattling of her teeth. Sam was trying to keep a clear head, to remember back to her survival training, but it was getting hard to focus on anything other than the icy stillness invading her every cell.   At least when she was chiseling the DHD out of the ice, the work was keeping her warm. The Colonel was right that she needed some rest, but now it was getting too cold even for sleep.

 

There wasn’t enough light to see her breath anymore, but she knew the little white clouds were there, taking away more of her precious warmth with each exhalation. Sam tried not to move. She didn’t want to squander the heat her body was transferring to the blanket and to Colonel O’Neill’s jacket next to her. But Sam’s feet were freezing in her boots. When she moved them to try to warm her toes, her legs brushed up against the ice-cold fabric of her BDUs, sucking warmth from her skin in sharp little bee stings. God, this was miserable. Maybe she should just get up and start working on the gate again. The sooner she was done, the sooner they could go home and get warm. She was already dreaming about big cozy comforters, hot chocolate, and fireplaces. As soon as they got back and she was cleared to leave the SGC, Sam was going to go to the Stagecoach Inn in Manitou, get a table by one of the fireplaces, and stay there all night eating soup until her whole body was warm again, inside and out.

 

But fantasizing about fireplaces wasn’t going to do either of them any good. She should just get up.

 

Sam slowly pushed away from Colonel O’Neill and bit back a curse when the icy air hit the parts of her body that had been temporarily sheltered. She was about to launch into another mental riff on the misery of negative temperatures, when she realized that the Colonel was lying still. Completely still.

 

He wasn’t shivering.

 

Damn! Sam couldn’t keep her own teeth from knocking together and he was just as cold <i> _and </i>_ in shock. She leaned back up against him and felt for a pulse at his neck. It seemed solid and fairly strong, but as she listened, it was obvious that his breathing was shallow and slow – she couldn’t keep her breathing slow enough to pace him. Sam struggled against the fog in her brain to recall the details of her survival training. It wasn’t a good sign when shivering stopped. The body was giving up on the externals and focusing on keeping the core warm.

 

“Sir?” she asked, not really wanting to wake him up – she had already done that once by laying on his broken ribs – but she needed to make sure he was still conscious.

 

“Colonel O’Neill?”

 

She leaned down over his face trying to get a sense of how bad he was. He looked pale, bluish, and cold, but it was hard to tell exactly how pale in the dark, and everything down here looked bluish and cold. She put a hand on his face. “Sir, can you hear me?” she asked, not wanting to resort to shaking him. Not in his current condition.

 

Sam had to get him warmer, but she was working with limited resources. She could light the sterno again but she knew it wasn’t going to last much longer and she wanted to save it for melting ice. From what she remembered from survival training, in cases of more serious hypothermia, it was important to warm the core – the chest, neck and head. Then it dawned on her. She checked the length of the thermal blanket that was bundled around them and carefully pulled it up over their heads. She should have done that from the start. He was wearing his hat, which was good, but it still left his face exposed. Having the blanket over both their heads would help with the worst points of heat loss.

 

Next Sam arranged herself under the blanket, swinging one leg over Colonel O’Neill’s body to straddle him. She snaked her arms out of her jacket, leaving it draped loosely over her. Then she worked her hands underneath the colonel’s jacket and t-shirt, down to his bare skin. She rested her forearms against his sides and slid her fingers up to a point just below his armpits. Her hands were still fairly warm from being tucked against her body so she figured they’d help at least a little bit. Then she arranged her legs so that each calf was pressed gently against his sides and hips to warm as much of him as possible without resting any weight on him.

 

“Sir?” she asked again, but he still wasn’t responding.

 

She needed to think. Where else could she get warmth? What else was radiating?

 

Her breath.

 

She leaned down as close to his face as possible, breathing out through her mouth directly over his, letting her slightly warmed air make it into his lungs. Sam figured it would have to help at least a little bit.

 

Of course, there was a better way to make the air he was breathing a little warmer.

 

Sam closed her eyes. He was either asleep or unconscious. It wasn’t like…

 

This was no time to get skittish about these things. They were fighting for their lives and every bit helped. It had to. Sam leaned in even further and pressed her lips to his slightly open ones and began breathing directly into his mouth.

 

It certainly felt warmer that way, although his lips were cold and unresponsive against hers. His breathing was so light and slow that it scared her. Sam didn’t know if she could get them both out of this, and he was counting on her. She felt the fear gripping her stomach and for a moment it actually overrode the cold. She didn’t want to die here. Not like this. Not alone on some frozen planet after watching Colonel O’Neill, a man she cared about and respected, die first. She couldn’t let that happen. She had to get the gate working. But first she had to get the colonel stable again.

 

It seemed like a long time, but it was actually warming up under the blanket. Not tropical island warm or fireplace warm, but better. Almost tolerable. Her arms were tired of carrying her weight, but she was afraid to move. Afraid of what might happen to him.

 

Finally, he started to stir.

 

She felt a little jerk in his head, and then he turned to the side, pulling away from her. “Car…ter? What…the…hell?” His voice was weak and hoarse, and he was pausing in unnatural places.

 

“Sorry, sir. You stopped shivering.”

 

“And that’s…a bad thing?”

 

“Actually, yes, it is. In survival training, they said that that’s one of the signs of more severe hypothermia.”

 

“They must have…changed survival training…since I…took it.”

 

“Why’s that, sir?”

 

“I don’t…remember them…teaching about…the kissing.”

 

Carter wondered if it was possible to blush in cold like this. “I wasn’t kissing you, sir. I was just…sharing warm air.”

 

“Oh…is that…what you call it?”

 

She let out a flustered sigh. “Sir, you lost consciousness. Your breathing got slow and shallow and you stopped shivering. I didn’t know what else to do. I was trying to warm you up.”

 

“It’s okay…Carter. I…it’s …okay.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“You’ve…warmed me…up,” he said slowly.

 

Sam pulled her hands from under his shirt and slowly rolled to the side, silently bemoaning the fact that she was going to have to re-warm her spot. She rested her head on the blanket underneath them, letting her forehead fall against his shoulder. “We’ll be warmer with the blanket over our heads,” she said softly.

 

“And here…I thought…you were making us…a little…love…nest.”

 

“Just trying to keep us warm, sir.”

 

Sam almost didn’t hear what he said as she started to fall back asleep. He muttered something and it took a minute for her brain to process it. When it did, it warmed her in ways a fire never could.

 

“Too bad,” he’d said.

 

\-------------

-knightshade

March 1, 2007

 

 

 


End file.
